My Take: Can you spare $10 this holiday season?

Managing Editor Jason Hunsicker's weekend column examines what it would take to make a difference.

Jason Hunsicker

It’s almost Christmas, and that means time for shopping, for giving, for receiving.

And for fundraisers.

At the Daily Express, we’re again promoting the Hope’s Kitchen fundraiser, which supports a local soup kitchen that serves meals to those in need.

In front of stores across the county, you’ll find volunteers ringing bells and standing guard over red kettles for the Salvation Army, an organization that provides food and other assistance to individuals and families that need a helping hand.

These are the two most visible groups this time of year, but are hardly the only ones. And it’s easy to hear the bells, to read the calls for support, and think to yourself about your own problems, your own needs, and grip your dollars more tightly.

But then again, giving feels good. It’s the right thing to do. And it turns out that satisfying the fundraising desires would be easy if those of us who can would just do their part.

According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city of Kirksville had 17,505 people living within its borders. Of that total, 15,107 of them are ages 15 and older.

For the sake of this discussion, let’s make that age, 15, the bottom age line of having cash to donate to causes like the Salvation Army and Hope’s Kitchen.

Certainly, not every 15-year-old in Kirksville has available cash. The same is true for each of those 15,107 people. Some of them are the very people in need, the ones we’re trying to raise money to help.

So, let’s say a third of that population is unable to contribute anything, for whatever reason, and round down to a nice, even number.

10,000.

The Salvation Army has set a fundraising goal of $90,000.

Hope’s Kitchen doesn’t set a fundraising goal, happy to take whatever the community is willing to contribute and do its good work. Last year, the drive set a record by raising $10,000.

Add those together, and you get $100,000. And in our little equation here, we have 10,000 people considered on solid enough footing to contribute.

That means if 10,000 people, a total that represents just 40 percent of the entire Adair County population, if each one of those 10,000 people could spare $10 – $9 for the Salvation Army, $1 for Hope’s Kitchen – both groups would have the funds they need to do their work, to feed the hungry, to keep the heat on in the cold months, to make a difference.